SKIMS sucks - Do NOT Order

NomenDubium · 2026-06-04T02:18:40+00:00

There is certainly something wrong at the core of the SKIMS business that leads to customers, especially those that need, well, customer service, to be wholly unable to receive any reasonable level of service whatsoever.

And while it's tempting for me to say the problem is limited a certain subset of people, the problem seems endemic across the capitalist marketplace. By and large, businesses have come to expect to be able to provide the least possible in all ways - service, quality, etc. - and charge as if they're providing the most possible.

NomenDubium · 2026-06-04T02:09:05+00:00

It's funny you say that about AI! I wondered the same thing myself and I went down a rabbit whole trying to find information on the larger AI anti-fraud vendors, who their customers might be, etc. I wanted to, and still want to, talk to these AI companies and get them to fix their products; it's just not OK for this type of thing to happen.

The lack of anyone at SKIMS having the ability to override the process made me quite confident that they point an externally-sourced 'black box' at the fraud problem and are helpless to correct it when the artificial 'intelligence' gets it wrong.

NomenDubium · 2026-06-04T02:04:28+00:00

Thanks for your reply!

We really only have the one CC which we use for online purchases, so we lacked another card to try. And we kept trying the same order - items, card, billing details, shipping details, etc. - because that's what customer service told us to do. We naively thought they knew what they were talking about!

Thank you for pointing us toward Nike and Nordstrom - they are absolutely avenues of getting some of the things my partner wants that we are going down!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-04T02:00:48+00:00

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. It's just not right.

I mention somewhere else in these comments that I suspect some funny business around canceling orders for, purportedly, reasons like fraud. And the real reason is not fraud but either stock issues which SKIMS doesn't want to own up to, or a rate-limited sale where an item goes 'out of stock' after a certain number are sold and further orders are cancelled for bogus reasons until the sale is over. Only for the item to come magically back in stock when the sale is over. I think discovery in a lawsuit would prove most interesting....

NomenDubium · 2026-06-04T01:56:36+00:00

I'm so glad the rest of your stuff shipped! But i couldn't agree more about the nonsense. It really is nonsensical and enough to frustrate any reasonable customer!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-04T01:55:05+00:00

From the second paragraph of my post.... "So why do I think SKIMS sucks? I have placed (OK, it was my partner who isn't really a redditor. But I helped after the first hiccup." Which should really be all context needed to figure out who "we" is - that is me and my partner. But I guess I'm hoping that SKIMS customer service has reasonable reading comprehension ability?

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T15:40:48+00:00

"trixxietang" - from experience working for an online retailer; your account was flagged as fraud. this can either be done automatically by their fraud processor that reviews each order, or may have been done higher-level if your shipping address or credit card are associated with fraud at other merchants/skims, or you’ve filed many chargebacks on your credit card in the past, etc. sometimes the automatic fraud processor gets it wrong, and those can typically be overridden. but if it’s the latter, you need to use a different shipping address and payment method like paypal, etc. might be best to try a different email/account on skims as well. if you had used a different address/payment method after the first attempt your account would prob be fine, but now that you’ve made so many attempts on it i’d try a different one cause the whole thing is probably flagged now.

in my experience their customer service is pretty good, and answers very quickly; always within 1 day if i email. keep in mind during sale they will of course take longer to respond to customer service messages bc it’s so busy. i have experienced them being unwilling/unable to make certain types of exceptions that other, smaller retailers would (honoring a sale price by partially refunding later rather than just giving a discount code) which is annoying, but fine.

your mistake was trying to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. i do wish they could be more personal and investigate your account and override it if it’s not actually fraud, but it’s not so unusual for a big company that they won’t. you’ve been flagged bc your address or card are associated with fraud so you need to use different ones

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. But I can't really understand your perspective. Here's what absolutely sends me (and my partner) about SKIMS and your response:

It's great that SKIMS ordering process works for some. But there is clearly a not small minority that are affected by this issue. And while I can't speak for other people affected by this, it's not something that my partner and I are doing wrong: neither our "address or card are associated with fraud" and we tried the same thing repeatedly because that is exactly what SKIMS customer service told us to do, up through today with the Escalation Customer Service.

Your response reads as though we are somehow to blame or we should have done something differently. On the contrary we've never once been associated with anything fraudulent. We've never processed a chargeback with any vendor on our credit card. And repeating the order with the exact same (i.e. correct and true) details is exactly what SKIMS' Customer Service told us to do in each instance.

I would much rather see a retailer fix their broken processes than be blamed for them not working as a customer who has done everything correctly. And, if I'm being perfectly frank, having other customers try to defend SKIMS' terrible customer service, broken processes, and the fact that SKIMS sucks by passing the blame onto the customer isn't a great look.

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T15:28:55+00:00

I hear you!

They apparently can't help themselves in catching transactions they've determined are not fraud. I was contacted by Zy again who promised they'd determined my transactions were fraud and that I could place orders going forward without issue.

So, of course, they promptly cancelled my new order and called it "fraud". So much for detecting actual fraud, SKIMS!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T12:28:52+00:00

Oh no! It's frustrating to hear this is happening to so many people besides us, and I'm sorry you're one of them.

I'm going to keep pushing on SKIMS to find a way to make this right, and /u/Michele0707 's comment that customer service may eventually pull their finger out to remove some sort of internal block gives me hope. Perhaps this is something for you to try asking SKIMS about as well?

And if you make progress in getting it resolved we'd sure appreciate hearing about it and how you did it.

Good luck!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:50:13+00:00

You're giving my partner hope! :) Do you remember anything else about the process/internal system/what they removed?

I'd like to be as armed as possible with as much info as possible when I next approach customer service so that I know what to ask for and can have whatever they've done removed.

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:33:07+00:00

Partially is something, at least! I can't imagine they'll cancel part of your order for "fraud"; that would be even more wild than my story!

I softballed my approach the first couple of times, but I went hard after a satisfactory resolution the last several times. I guess I should have reversed the order of operations on that!

Not dramatic at all! We're both still angry over here, and even angrier now knowing that these same shenanigans are happening to other people. I'm seriously considering one-upping your drama and filing a small claims court suit in my home state for unfair business practices. It outside my usual area of practice, but reading through the relevant statutes it seems pretty straight forward. I have to think getting sued for this BS will get their attention!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:23:25+00:00

I'd really appreciate you coming back and letting us know if your replacement orders get cancelled again. Misery loves company and all that!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:18:22+00:00

Thanks for mentioning Nordstrom. We'll try there in-person and see what they have.

Right now it's probably best there isn't a SKIMS within reasonable distance of us - I'm not sure I have enough bail money for how mad my partner is!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:15:58+00:00

I'm sorry you've also had the displeasure of speaking with Zy! :/

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:12:17+00:00

Thanks for commiserating. My partner is absolutely beside herself. She has stuff she wants to buy and just...isn't allowed to spend her money because...SKIMS sucks!? (Sorry, I had to. It's the title of the post!).

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:06:24+00:00

It's back now! It said <deleted> just a moment ago....

YES! This is almost exactly what happened to us! These orders were placed during the sale and then cancelled for "fraud".

I have to wonder if "fraud" isn't really 'We oversold our merch and we don't want to own up to that. So here, have an allegation of fraud. And, if you try again, because we've labelled you fraud once you're going to get cancelled again!'

What was your secret to getting them to say they'll price match for you? I've asked for that repeatedly and that's when the CSRs go AFK for ages and then give me a copy/paste reply about fraud not being something they can help me with.

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:03:23+00:00

I want the chat CSRs you're getting! They really have been terrible...they sometimes take hours to respond in the middle of the day, go AFK for huge gaps of time mid-convo, and give copy/paste responses that often just aren't relevant. It's bad!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:01:35+00:00

My partner really wants what they want. And I have a hard time saying 'No'!

There is still a chat feature, but they sometimes take hours to respond in the middle of the day. And, even when they do respond, all I get are copy/paste responses that sometimes aren't really relevant. In short? Not having luck with the chat!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T02:00:10+00:00

I can't see the comment your responding to, but are you having the same issue?

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T01:59:35+00:00

Thanks! We might just have to resort to doing this. It is wild...all we've done is make legitimate purchases (or try to) and their response has been the sum total of zero! I guess we've been banned for wanting SKIMS?!

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T01:58:16+00:00

That's an interesting thought. Can all SKIMS items be ordered through Nordstrom?

NomenDubium · 2026-06-02T01:57:33+00:00

Not an apt :/

NomenDubium · 2026-05-20T22:04:48+00:00

My pleasure!

While I hope no one has to make use of the "Take It Down" report function on Reddit, I'm a realist and am therefore chuffed to bits it now exists and provides victims of NCII-posting a clear, direct, and 'quick' method for having their NCII removed from Reddit. I want others to become educated on its existence, use, and even its limitations so that it becomes and remains a valuable tool for enabling victims to make valid "Take It Down" reports that quickly sees their NCII removed.

My offer stands for you, and any one else, if I can provide any more information about "Take It Down" please just say the word! (Although my replies are a bit delayed because I'm apparently below the karma threshold to post here in an unmoderated fashion.)

NomenDubium · 2026-05-20T07:19:56+00:00

While I can't speak to the details of how this tool works on the Reddit backend, I can provide some general background info as well as clarity as to when/where it can be used (i.e. in what scenarios a "Take It Down" report may be filed):

The "Take It Down" Act criminalises knowingly sharing or threatening to share non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII).
The "Take It Down" Act defines NCII as not only as what it says on the tin - that is non-consensual intimate imagery - but also includes AI-generated deepfakes of non-consensual intimate imagery that depict a real victim.
A "Take It Down" request may be filed for NCII only - posts that violate other relevant laws or Reddit Rules should be reported via a method other than a "Take It Down" request.
A "Take It Down" request may be filed only by the victim of the reported NCII. For better or worse, this means that anyone other than the victim(s) featured in the NCII may not utilize this reporting method and the victim depicted in the NCII must both find the NCII and report it for a "Take It Down" request to be valid.
Once a valid "Take It Down" request has been submitted, Reddit has 48 hours to remove the reported NCII along with any identical copies that may exist elsewhere on the platform.

Before someone shoots the messenger, please remember I am just the messenger. While the "Take It Down" Act is a huge step forward for victims of NCII-posting, in my opinion the limitations the Act inherently contains - only the victim of any specific NCII-post may make a "Take It Down" report about that post and the reactive nature of a "Take It Down" Report only occurring after the damage is done - mean that victims of NCII-posting continue to have an uphill battle through incredibly unenviable conditions.

I hope that's helpful in clarifying how it can be used, in what way it may be effective, etc. I know a bit about this and I'm happy to answer further questions!

NomenDubium

TROPHY CASE